Rogic: adversity made me a stronger player

by jspasaro

Josh Spasaro
Sports Journalist

I spent four years in country newspapers before taking on a dream role of covering national and international sports news across the entire APN network, in early 2012.
I learnt my trade in Kingaroy, Queanbeyan and Lismore doing it all – design, photography and headline writing.
I am now the envy of all my friends and family members, now that I have the privilege of covering Origin, Bledisloe Cups, footy grand finals and other top international sporting events.
Yes, I wouldn’t trade this job for...

While Rogic will be welcomed back into the Socceroos fold, winger Mathew Leckie has been ruled out.

He has been battling a respiratory illness that has prevented him from flying out of Germany - where he plays for FC Ingolstadt - and will miss tonight's game and next Tuesday night's qualifier against Bangladesh in Dhaka.

Leckie joins defender Matthew Spiranovic (calf) as withdrawals from the 23-man squad for the back-to-back qualifiers.

Skipper Mile Jedinak also arrived in camp having only played 90 minutes over the past three weeks.

In good news, though, goalkeeper Mat Ryan (knee) and left-back Jason Davidson (calf) were both passed as fit and available.

Despite the two injury omissions and concerns over the fitness of a handful of others, Australian coach Ange Postecoglou denied it was a concern going into a match his side needs to win.

"The work that we've done over the last two years means I'm not nearly as stressed about injuries as I was previously," he said.

"The guys that are here are in good condition and in good form.

"Apart from Josh Risdon and James Meredith, all have had good experience at international level so I'm a lot more comfortable.

"To be honest our last performance (2-0 loss to Jordan) wasn't that great, so I would have made changes anyway."